by David Wojnarowicz
A visceral and carnivalesque mosaic of life at the fringes
The Waterfront Journals is a road trip through the sensuous, perilous landscape of alternative America – a series of fictional monologues that ventriloquise the real people Wojnarowicz met on his travels while he was sleeping rough.
We meet these hustlers, runaways and dreamers in unassuming locations – in truck stops, bus stations and parks. Their stories are disturbing, often shocking; but they’re told with an honesty and a hallucinatory intensity that simply demands to be heard.
Published for the first time in the UK, this electrifying collection confirms that David Wojnarowicz was not only one of millennial America’s most necessary and visionary artists, but also among its most humane and urgent literary chroniclers.
David Wojnarowicz was a writer, artist, AIDS activist and anticensorship advocate. He wrote five books, and his paintings are exhibited in MoMA and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He died from AIDS in 1992.
Praise for The Waterfront Journals
'A totally crucial book by one of the 20th century’s greatest artists and writers.' – Maggie Nelson
'Wojnarowicz proves that the difference between the rules of poverty and those of a dream is nothing more than smoke. The termination point of American life examined by the terminal American artist.' – Jarett Kobek